7:00 am. The name “Tommy Vee” pops up on my text message:
“Hey, Gloria! Are you going to the High School Reunion, too? I just bought my plane tickets!”
“Tommy! How wonderful to hear from you! I didn’t even know we were having one! When and where is it?”
“On October 14th right there, back on Staten Island.”
“OMG! How I’d love to go! Funny thing happened, though; by then, I’ll be in the middle of chemo and radiation.”
“Can you talk for a few minutes?”
“Absolutely!”
The phone rings and my mind seizes on this sweet little 5 year old blond boy, thin as a rail, an animated live wire who talked a blue streak. A real Mr. Personality, he was as charismatic as a 5 year old could possibly have the right to be.
My first conscious memory of Tommy is the two of us walking in a double line together with our first grade class alongside Our Lady Queen of Peace Church. Because we were partners that day, we had to hold hands, which I thought was kind of cool since I’ve always liked holding hands with cute guys, even back then.
Across the street, I saw the funeral parlor that would be, years later, the place where I’d get my last desperate look at my parents’ faces.
I pointed to Hanley’s Funeral Home and said, “They have dead people there, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, setting me up for a joke. “People are dying to get in there!”
I laughed, thinking he was probably the cleverest person I knew. “Did someone tell you that or did you make that up yourself?”
“No, I just dug it up!”
I’m not sure, but I think it was the first time I’d ever heard a pun. I thought he was brilliant!
The Grown-Up Tommy says, “So, Gloria! What’s going on?”
I tell him about climbing the mountains of China, getting short of breath, thinking I was having a heart attack, feeling sick the whole trip, coming back to the US, going to the emergency room, discovering pulmonary embolisms, and oh, yeah, by the way, there’s a mass on your left lung, and it’s malignant and you’ve got lung cancer, adenocarcinoma stage 3b, crossed the mediastinum. Huh! Never even knew I had a mediastinum to cross!
He tells me about his own battle with cancer and how it finally left him alone after wreaking so much devastation upon him. He negotiated a truce with cancer and all the good parts of his life are still his, and how every day he enjoys everything around him. He is a man of great faith and exudes this confidence that everything will be OK. I believe he knows what he’s talking about. And, of course, I’m inspired.
“I hope we keep in touch, Gloria. I’d like to help you get through this.”
I recount to him my memory of the two of us walking along the street and how he had made me laugh, and how I loved that he was holding my hand.
“And isn’t it so sweet, Tommy, that after all these years, you reach out to me…and you’re still holding my hand.”
Oh, please dear God, Goddess,
or Deity du Jure,
Let there be Karma,
I pray to something I’m not sure
Would be interested enough to tune in
To my selfish petition—a kind of ammunition.
Then, just as soon as I realize
That Karma would interpret
My noble thirst for justice
As a bald-faced lust for revenge,
Karma does a double-take
and catches me, red-handed
Building a nest for vultures
In the dark corners of my soul.
Illustration Credit: GIFSec.com and hinduperspective.com, “Is It OK to Leave Justice to Karma?”
Talk by Gloria Talcove-Woodward Sunday, November 20, 2016 The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia Columbia, South Carolina
Cautionary Tale: Recitation of Original Poetry by John Starino, “Lois.”
(Included here, with permission, from John Starino)
John Starino
“Lois”
She was a big woman
For her height, five, five
Her other sibling
A Brother
She was married
Two children
One grew marijuana
For daily use
The other
Invalid from the First
Gulf War by some
Undetermined disease
She rarely sang in choir
Enjoyed her gossip with
Soap Opera at The Beauty Parlor
Her husband died in
An auto accident
While driving to the plant
Early one morning
She smoked, she drank little
She was
Now Lois is on the floor
In a cob webbed corner of her
Mother-in-Law’s garage within
A brown wooden box
Which has a peaked
Detachable lid
Along with her Wedding Picture
Inside of
Two plastic bags
One Wal-Mart
One Bi-Lo
Opening Words [adapted from Deuteronomy 6:11]:
We build on foundations we did not lay
We warm ourselves by fires we did not light
We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant
We drink from wells we did not dig
We profit from persons we did not know.
This is as it should be.
Together we are more than any one person could be.
Together we can build across the generations.
Together we can renew our hope and faith in the life that is yet to unfold.
Time for Children of All Ages: Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece
(Gloria Talcove-Woodward)
Community: Two Boats and a Helicopter
There’s a huge flood and a man is stranded on the roof of his house. A guy in a rowboat comes by and the guy shouts, “Jump in! I’ll save you!” The man on the roof shouts back, “I’m waiting for my God to save me.” Five minutes later, the water has risen to the man’s knees. A guy in a pontoon boat comes by and shouts, “Climb in the boat! I’ll save you!” And the man on the roof shouts back, “I’m waiting for my God to save me!” Next thing you know, there’s a helicopter, and the pilot throws out a rope ladder and shouts down using a bullhorn, “Climb up the ladder! I’ll save you!” The man on the roof shouts back, “I’m waiting for my God to save me.” Just before the man on the roof gets swept away by the flood waters, he shouts up to the heavens, “God, why have you forsaken me?” And the sky breaks open and God, who looks just like Bernie Sanders, shouts down, “I just sent you two boats and a damn helicopter! What more do you want?”
A religious person would interpret this story to mean that God’s hand is in everything. A Unitarian might say that we are God’s hands if She, in fact, exists, and a pragmatic agnostic (who looks just like Bernie Sanders) might say that if you had paid more attention to evacuation warnings, you might not need so damn many miracles.
My talk today is about community and the low-hanging fruit of happiness and how, in spite of the cards we have either chosen or have been dealt, a spiritual community can point us in the right direction towards having the best life we can possibly have.
And it’s also about how not to wind up in your mother-in-law’s garage like poor “Lois” in John Starino’s excellent poem. It’s a little late for a Spoiler Alert, but I don’t think Lois had a spiritual community.
As a Northern transplanted recovering Catholic, I moved to conservative little Columbia in June of 1987. My only acquaintances were my elderly neighbors with whom I talked a lot about tomatoes, tomato sandwiches, tomato plants, tomato cages, seven dust and tomato worms. I had no friends or relatives here, and other than my five-year old Chris, and the mailman, and an occasional magazine salesperson, I had no one to talk to during the day. I missed adult conversation so much that I believe I was the only person that the Jehova’s Witnesses had ever tried to get away from.
On September 27, 1987, I walked into this church for the first time–almost 30 years ago, great with child, and towing my little Chris by the hand. The first person to greet me was Mark T., who took his jacket off and put it on Chris because Chris was cold. When the service began, Mark lifted Chris up and put him up on the stage so he could light the chalice. I was so bowled over by that act of kindness and inclusion, that I immediately felt like I’d come home to a spiritual community I never knew I had. I knew I’d be here for a good long time. And ever since, I’ve called myself a Born Again Unitarian. Every time I see Mark, I always remember his kindness with a gratitude that I’m not sure he is aware of.
That same morning, during Joys and Concerns, Mitch Y. stood up and announced that he and Angie D. would be getting married right here, that very afternoon, and, to Angie’s complete surprise, announced with that great largesse that was so very Mitch that the whole church was invited. He didn’t have to invite ME twice! I had nowhere else to go!
I ran to Belk’s, bought a Chinese Ginger Jar that was on sale for $10, and Chris and I went back for their wedding, which was wonderful. I felt a part of someone’s family, and it didn’t matter one iota that it wasn’t mine. Angie tells me that the first time she remembers meeting me was on the reception line at her wedding. She had no idea who I was except I’m sure she noticed that I was about 10 months pregnant and that I was stuffing my face with wedding cake. The Chinese Ginger Jar went to Mitch after their divorce nine years later. The congregation continued to cherish Mitch and Angie, and their daughter, who grew up, right here in this church just like my kids. Sadly, Mitch, such a fun and funny guy, passed away in 2006. But every time I see Angie, I always think of her as that beautiful bride and the joy I took from being an almost wedding crasher on her big day. I am sure she has no idea how grateful I still am to her and to Mitch.
The same day that Angie and Mitch got married, Janet S., our wonderful piano player, who had just had a baby herself, also noticed that I was about ten months pregnant, and she gave me her telephone number and said I could drop Chris off at her house at any time of the day or night should I need to go the hospital. Nine days later, my parents were here, so I didn’t need to call on her, but what a relief it was to know that I had someone that I could call even in the middle of the night, if need be. Janet didn’t know me or Chris, but that didn’t stop her from reaching out to me. She probably had no idea of how much comfort I took in having someone I could rely on. Every time I see her, I remember with such gratitude that act of loving kindness.
And that was just the first day of my being here! And I’ve got thirty more years to tell you about, so kick off your shoes and get comfortable. Just kidding!
Why would anyone bother having a spiritual community? I mean, we have our little communities at work, we have our neighbors, we have our kids, other family members, we have sports teams, bowling leagues, book groups, our own circle of friends, you name it. And who has the time, anyway?
A spiritual community like ours remains a constant in our lives. We share a common history with a community that celebrates our joys and mourns our losses, that witnesses our milestones and our rites of passage, providing us with a sense of connection and continuity.
How important is that? Pretty important, considering that all the non-church groups I’ve just mentioned, come and go, but a spiritual community is always there. Your kids grow up and move away. You can move away from here, or you can get busy and forget we’re even here, but you can always come back. And the minute you walk in, you know you’re home again. There aren’t too many other places like that. And if you really want to feel like you’re home, walk into the kitchen, and open up the fridge. Just remember to close the door again after you forget why you opened it.
Everyone is here for variations on the same theme. We need different things at different stages of our lives. You will see everyone from newborn babies to senior citizens. We are all looking to find someone who can relate to who we are and where we are in our life’s journey. Some of us might be leading the way, and others of us might be trying to find our way. So many of us might just be looking to figure out which way is up so we don’t fall down.
In his new book, “Tribe,” Sebastian Junger points out that while 50% of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans apply for permanent PTSD benefits, only 10% of those veterans have seen or been engaged in active combat. How can this be? He suggests that their PTSD is due in large part to their separation from their military brothers and sisters, their “tribe,” for whom they were prepared to fight and die, regardless of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, political philosophy or any other characteristic.
After their deployment ends, our veterans return to a society that has learned to live without them, and which seems to be at war with itself. Disoriented, marginalized and isolated, they cannot recreate what they have just lost: a purpose. In their platoons, they developed an intense loyalty towards each other and an unquestionable sense of belonging not common in our nuclear families and fragmented social systems. It is easy to forget that we were once a communal species, but the lack of our own tribe where each person is needed and valued does seem to explain our never-ending quest for meaning.
Tragedy and loss intrude their way into our lives when we least expect it. Death, divorce, addiction, betrayal, illness and disability, financial insecurity, and even elections, can all devastate us and make us wonder what, if anything, life is all about. Our survival depends upon our ability to get back on our feet again.
The right kind of community can help you to define a purpose to your life, just in case you’ve lost sight of what that purpose might happen to be. If you’re really busy and stressed out, the purpose of your life is just to get through each day. But during transitions to other stages of our lives, we have to reinvent ourselves. To some people, such an opportunity is a joy, but to others it is a profound and daunting challenge. Communities will have a common purpose, and whatever you contribute to that common purpose will be appreciated by others, and best of all, you’ll have the personal satisfaction of being useful. If you find yourself with some time on your hands, please don’t forget that we are here and we have lots of fun things we could use your help on. And the pleasure of your company would be just as good!
I will never forget the conversation I had many years ago with a man who was a custodian at my kids’ school. He told me that he had been a hopeless alcoholic, crushed by debt and illness, and tons of family problems. In desperation, he sought out the preacher from his local church. The preacher didn’t lecture him or quote the Bible to him. The only thing he said was start tithing, come to church two or three times a week, and you’ll be healthy, wealthy and wise, and you (probably) won’t go to Hell when you die.
Now if you’re a Unitarian and you come to church more than once a week, you just might be the minister. Also, we generally don’t tithe, probably because we don’t believe in Hell, so therefore, 10% of your income (and I don’t know if that’s before or after taxes and deductions) would be a steep price to pay in order to avoid going somewhere you were never going to go to in the first place!
That’s probably why the only Unitarian miracle I’m aware of is meeting our pledge goal. Now if we did tithe, we could probably afford to hire Megachurch Preacher Joel Osteen as our minister which would probably increase our membership by at least a thousand-fold, but then just imagine how high our capital campaign goal would be! It makes my head spin just thinking about it. Come to think of it, our current capital campaign is a real bargain! It’s much more than half-off!
Getting back to that man? He told me that he had stopped drinking from one day to the next, and, miraculously, his health and family relations had improved tremendously, and his finances stabilized, allowing him and his family to live a more secure and peaceful life.
It’s not that I don’t believe in miracles, but the skeptic in me just couldn’t take that at face value. Then I figured it out: There’s a difference between value and cost. Just like that commercial: The cost of tithing: 10%, the value: Priceless.
And here’s the explanation in Luke 12:34 and Matthew 6:21: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
All of which means that the man probably went to church where he was probably eating church food (which could be something like mystery meat on a hot dog bun), which would constitute a nutritional upgrade from bar fare (which could be something like four beers and a handful of Slim Jims). He probably got involved in some healthful activities like playing basketball with the church youth and quite possibly became a mentor to a few of them, and maybe he became the go-to guy for plumbing crises, and maybe he discovered that he was someone people could look up to, and maybe his kids were proud of him because they saw him as a leader that other people respected, because when I met him, he seemed like someone who had earned the love and respect of people he loved and respected himself.
The best way to surround yourself with a loving community is just to roll up your sleeves and pitch in. Whatever you do, you’ll probably have a pretty good time doing it. Very often, you find yourself just working on a committee with someone, or washing dishes in the kitchen after coffee hour, or painting the RE wing, or putting the chairs away in the social hall, or manning a table at our garage sale, or attending a pancake breakfast fundraiser for our RE program or carrying our rather unwieldy Standing on the Side of Love banner in the Pride Parade. (I mean, could that thing be any heavier? Even we Unitarians have our cross to bear) And something happens. You drop something (hopefully, it’s not the banner dropping on your foot!) or you say something, you laugh and you find yourself sharing a moment with someone that neither one of you will ever forget, and that becomes a little tiny chip in this huge mosaic of all the experiences that you have over the years in this church that will keep you coming back. You find yourself caring about other people’s lives, rejoicing with them over their triumphs and crying with them through their sorrows, helping lift a burden off their shoulders or letting them help you lift one off your own.
Community, especially a spiritual community, is an investment of our time, our care, our talents, our love, and our resources. If you take care of your investment, the dividends are surprisingly high.
A spiritual community contributes to our physical and mental health. Just being here calls us to our better selves, helps us to practice things like gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, mindfulness, respect, generosity and acceptance. It helps us to deal more honestly and effectively with disappointments and conflicts. If you have children, you know they watch you and they learn from you how to solve problems and conduct themselves during trying times.
It is here that our children learn to think critically and to make good decisions using our Seven Principals as an ethical guide. A community is where you learn to be kind, when to say yes, when to say no, and when to say nothing It shapes your relationships with people in your own life, the larger community of our neighborhoods, our institutions, our state and our nation. I like to think of our UU kids as good global citizens.
Not everyone needs or wants a church, and that’s fine, but for those of us who do, I sure am glad that this place exists. Community is a little bit like health insurance—it pays to have it before you realize how much you need it.
And because my favorite spiritual practice is laughter, I will close with one more joke:
God appears to a man one night in a vision. The man asks God to let him win the lottery. God agrees. When the man dies in a tragic flood, he goes to Heaven and meets God and complains that God broke his promise because he never won the lottery. God, who looks just like Bernie Sanders, says to him, “You never won the lottery because you never bought a damned ticket! What more do you want?” And the man says, “I don’t know! Two Boats and a Helicopter?”
Thanks for coming. Have a beautiful Thanksgiving, and please know how thankful I am for you, this wonderful congregation that I love so very much.
Benediction
Each of Us Ministers to a Weary World
By Darcy Roake
There is too much hardship in this world to not find joy,
every day
There is too much injustice in this world to not right the balance,
every day
There is too much pain in this world to not heal,
every day
Each of us ministers to a weary world.
Let us go forth now and do that which calls us to make this world
more loving, more compassionate and more filled with the grace of divine presence, every day.
*******************
Go in Peace.
Bernie and Me
Music Credit: Bruno Mars, “Count on Me,” www.youtube.com
A gift is defined as something voluntarily given, with no expectation of payment of any kind, intended to show favor towards someone, to honor a person or an occasion, or to assist an individual or an organization in need. Most simply, we view a gift as a tangible sign of gratitude, consideration, affection, love or goodwill.
In a perfect world, our gift would elicit delight and gratitude. The grateful recipient would be sure to use and enjoy our gift as per our intentions, whether expressed or merely implied.
Now THAT would be the gold standard of gift gifting, wouldn’t it?
But, wait! Such an expectation transforms the gift into an exchange, a crass transaction sucking the very spirit out of the gift itself.
In this cheapened form, the gift is more about the giver than the recipient and, therefore, no longer a true gift. It has become an obligation and a source of tension and regret, one better not given in the first place.
Life is too short to wallow in remorse, though. Damage control is far more constructive than waiting for a perfect outcome. There is no perfect remedy, but a decent remedy would be to hit the reset button on the gift, provided that the recipient hasn’t yet rightfully hurled the gift back at the insipid, non-virtuous head of the giver.
The reset button should display the following message:
“Please forgive any negativity which has resulted from this gift. I now re-gift it to you with an open heart. Please enjoy this gift in any way you see fit…or not.”
Better to ennoble our faulty spirit than to pander to our bloated, indignant ego.
And one last caveat: Be prepared to duck!
Art Credit: Trojan Horse from Vergilius Vaticanus (wikipedia.org)
We were sitting around the coffee table, all of us trying to ignore that my father-in-law was dying. We talked about the economy, the weather, travel conditions, our children, and the latest news from the doctor, edited to put a rosy spin on his downward trend. My father-in-law grinned more in the last year than I had ever seen him do in all the many years I’d known him. As time started closing in on Ken, the wider his grin became, as if forced good cheer could stave off death’s stealthy approach.
I pulled a blue crochet hook out of my bag, and announced that I could make yarn from an old T-shirt and then crochet it into something useful, like a potholder. Ken got up and came back with a “Save Our Slopes” T-shirt, commemorating one of the countless runs in which he’d participated during his long retirement from a very successful career as an engineer and a businessman.
Ken had always been healthier than anyone his age had a right to be—he’d become a vegetarian during his 50s and then a “vegangelist” in his 70s. He had always planned to live until 100, but the rest of us considered 100 to be a conservative estimate. He travelled all over the world to hike and run in exotic and far-flung wonderlands, scaling mountains, and riding rafts over white water sluicing through slot canyons. He had started a Sierra Club chapter in his mountain town in North Carolina and hiked with college kids, avoiding old people whenever possible. He had very reluctantly moved into assisted living when he realized that his heart failure could be managed but never cured.
The shirt looked so new that I didn’t want to cut it up, but Ken insisted it was OK. Everyone watched as I cut a straight line from armhole to armhole. Then I folded the lower piece and cut through several thicknesses. At that moment, I realized that I was doing it all wrong, and sheepishly confessed that I may have just ruined the shirt.
Ken began to whimper and it dawned on me that his faith had been rewarded with disappointment. Here I was, just like his doctors, making a vague promise to take something precious that he can’t really use anymore, cut it up into something that’s falling apart and then weave it into something different—not necessarily better, but somewhat usable. Any way you slice it, though, the result is a net loss.
I would have cried, too, but my sister-in-law, Ann, did a quick web search for me and we located the instructions on how to make yarn from a T-shirt. With a few rescue snips and some fancy re-folding, I was able to resume making good on my promise. Vindicated, I crocheted in peace as the conversation looped its way through biographies and scientific breakthroughs.
We all sighed with relief as I put the finishing touches on this homespun, overgrown potholder. Ken was more than pleasantly surprised to see the tight pattern of knots. He ran his fingers over the sturdy, springy weave, and he seemed almost tickled that his once treasured T-shirt had morphed into an unexpectedly delightful piece of homely fabric art.
Ken thanked me and decreed that henceforth, this nubby rectangle would serve as a mat for his soup bowl at noon each day.
On our way out of the building that evening, Ann and I rehashed the experience of the almost-ruined T-shirt and the almost-miraculous jury-rigged solution. It was our little victory. She said, “Maybe you’ll write a story about this.” I said I would, but life, and then death, got in the way. Ken missed his 90th birthday by five days.
This is our first Christmas without Ken. His absence will always be glaring. But the relief that his anguish and fear have ended is a comfort, as are the happy memories of his life so very well-lived. Ken’s death has woven us all together just a little more tightly than before.
Ann tells me, “I’ve got something for you!” She presents me with the soup mat, lightly spattered with drops of dried soup. I am more than pleasantly surprised to see the tight pattern of knots. I run my fingers over the sturdy, springy weave, and I am tickled that this unexpectedly delightful piece of homely fabric art has found its way back to me.
We both smile, remembering the afternoon of our little victory. Once again, Ann reminds me, “Maybe you’ll write a story about this.”
Photo Credit: Gloria Talcove-Woodward, “The Soup Mat,” The Talcove Fiction Faction.
Winter, 1980. Outside, a miserable frigid wind is swirling in frantic circles, hoping to bite something warmer than itself. Brazen hillocks and patches of snow defy the cold sunshine.
Inside, it isn’t much warmer, but at least there’s no wind.
I’m wearing red, heart-shaped, Lolita sunglasses. The bright red feather boa wrapped around my neck is trailing behind me as I roller skate through the New York Armory’s trade show. I am draped with very cool, trendy, skinny, black ties embossed with pink flamingos and white dice, and I am handing out flyers advertising “Metal Impressions,” a very cool, trendy Brooklyn company owned and operated by my good friend and upstairs Park Slope neighbor, Barry. I have renamed him “Barrance,” not that there’s anything wrong with “Barry”—it’s just that “Barry” sounds like a derivation of something more formal, like, say, “Barrance,” which only exists because I have deemed that it should. Barry thinks his new name is brilliant!
Barrance has lent me a brand-new pair of electric-blue suede roller skates for this marketing extravaganza. The skates are a perfect fit and I shove off, tentative at first, but gaining confidence and momentum as the massive expanse of flawless concrete glides smoothly under my neon-yellow acrylic wheels. I feel seven feet tall, although the skates have only boosted me up to about 5’5.”
This is my dream job–getting paid to do what comes so naturally to me (smile, talk, laugh, skate, crash and fall, get up and do it again). As I recall, Barrance paid me handsomely to accompany him that day. I must not have been as broke as I remember, because I also recall trading the money I earned that day in order to keep the electric-blue suede skates, because, to tell the truth, I couldn’t live without them. The stride, the glide, the ride. This was moving on at its best!
As with most things we can’t live without, they are the first thing we pack when we move across the street, across the state, across the country, or across the ages. They are the first thing we unpack when we arrive. We put them high up on a shelf, not only to venerate them, but also to get them out of harm’s way, and we catch an occasional glimpse of them when we are rummaging around, searching for something mundane but more pressing. The urgency of our mission seldom permits us to linger too long on the sweetness of that vital piece of who we are or wish we were, but it’s comforting to know it’s still there, whenever we want it. The trouble is that we often forget it’s there because it’s totally obscured by the ever-proliferating clutter of our busy lives.
So what do I want now? Well, as much as I would love to put on those electric-blue suede skates, and speed down a hill only to remember that I never really learned how to stop without crashing into something, I really want to unclutter my life, divest myself of all these beautiful little treasures I have cherished for so long, and disencumber myself from being their custodian and keeper of the illusion that I will once again be young and skate around the Armory in Lolita sunglasses with a red feather boa with a funny, wonderful, laughing friend named Barrance.
It’s time to let it go so I can move on. There’s a tantalizing future out there, just waving around like a red feather boa, and if I’m going to grab onto it and let it pull me effortlessly through this gorgeous present of right now, I’m going to need both hands free.
First you stride, then you glide, then you ride.
This must be my dream job!
Photo Credit: My Electric-Blue Suede Roller Skates, by Gloria Talcove-Woodward
The little Texas tree house apartment, nestled high into a night sky thicket of bamboo, was aflitter with three or four hippie midwives and one young, sweet husband–perhaps the only person present who fully understood the terror, gravity and wonder of what was way too late to turn back.
Relentless pain roiled through my consciousness in a forever mode of no return. Delirious from the hallucinatory waves of misery, I thought it made perfect sense that the most beautiful baby boy I had ever seen was suddenly just there in the candlelight, glowing through the darkest part of the night. My very own “Petit Prince,” half moonbeam, half sunbeam.
The joy of seeing you for the first time was made even more wondrous by the realization that you had always been a part of my soul and my destiny all along.
With very little fanfare, the midwives quietly dressed us in soft, white hippie pajamas, blew out the candle, then tiptoed out and closed the door, leaving Daddy, you and me sleeping peacefully between dreamy sherbet sheets in a happy little knot that the dawn couldn’t pry loose even if it had wanted to.
My Very First Best Gift Ever.
Happy Birthday, Christopher.
Illustration Credit: Le Petit Prince, written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Gallimard (France), 1943.
“Rethinking Salvation” Talk by Gloria Talcove-Woodward Sunday, April 27, 2014 The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia Columbia, South Carolina
Prelude Music: “Save Me,” by Amy Mann
From the soundtrack of the movie, “Magnolia”
Offering Music: “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen
Postlude Music: “Santa Maria,” by Gotan Project
Opening Words:
Poem from “El Curioso Impertinente”
From Don Quijote de la Mancha, by Cervantes
First Reading
In death, I look for life,
In sickness, health,
In the prison, liberty,
In that which is closed, escape,
And in the traitor, loyalty.
But my luck, of whom I never expect anything good,
Together with the Heavens, have decreed that
Since it is the impossible for which I ask,
Even that which is possible shall be denied me.
Children’s Story:
This is a story about an old fisherman and his wife, who I assume was also old. They lived in a little hut near the sea. One day, he caught a Magic Fish and the Fish asked the man to please throw him back in the water. The Fisherman threw the fish back in and went home to his wife. When he got home, he told her about the Magic Fish. She said, “What???? You didn’t ask him for a wish? You should go back there right now and demand that he give you a nice cottage.” So the man, who was very humble, went back and called the Magic Fish, “Oh, Magic Fish!” (You see, he didn’t have an I-Phone). The Magic Fish, came up to the surface of the water, blub…blub…blub, and said “Yes?” The Old Man said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but my wife would like to ask you to change our hut into a nice cottage, like the kind they have in Shandon.” The Fish said, “Go home and you will find your wife sitting in front of the cottage, like the kind they have in Shandon.” When he got back, there was his beautiful little cottage, but his wife still wasn’t happy. She said, “You should go right back there and ask that Fish for a nice, big modern house, in a cul-de-sac like the kind they have behind the V.A.” So the Old Man went back, called the Fish, and said, “My wife wants a nice, big modern house, in a cul-de-sac like the kind they have behind the V.A.,” and the Fish said, “Go home and you will find your wife sitting in front of a big modern house in a cul-de-sac like the kind that they have behind the V.A.” And lo and behold, there she was and the house was just beautiful. But she still wasn’t happy. She said, “I can’t believe that you didn’t ask that Magic Fish for a big mansion, so I can be the Governor.” So the poor man when back, very ashamed, once again to the Fish. He told the Fish that his wife wanted a mansion so she could be the Governor. The Fish told the man to go back, that he would find his wife sitting in front of their home. When he did, he found his wife sitting in front of the little hut. He thought she would be mad, but she ran to meet, gave him a big kiss and a hug, and said, “Hiya, Handsome! Did you have a nice day today?” And they lived happily ever after.
Rethinking Salvation
Our Opening Words from El Curioso Impertinente, the curious impertinent one, never fail to hit me over the head with the origins of despair. “In death I look for life,” he admits, and because it is the impossible for which this poor guy keeps asking, he gets nothing. The remedy is simple: “When all else fails, lower your standards.” But this is an all-or-nothing kind of guy. He persists in dreaming this impossible dream, then blames his rotten luck and the whole Universe which, of course, are conspiring against him, and the only thing he has at the end of the day is despair and remorse. Why? Because he rejects reality. The only thing he accepts and doesn’t resist is own misery. And he’s learned nothing.
This is hell on earth and it’s real easy to get to—it’s just a short walk from wherever you last parked your grief.
Some religious persuasions would say that this poor guy is suffering so much that he will earn himself a place in Heaven, but the fly in the blazing ointment is that Despair is one of the seven deadly sins, and just one of those of Bad Boys will get you a nice, cozy corner in Hell for a very long time.
That’s when you need a talking fish, who will grant you magical favors, but the problem is that talking fish are only good for a few favors, especially if you get greedy and forget to be grateful for the many blessings you already have. It was Cervantes who also wrote that “The most odious sin in the eyes of God is that of ingratitude.” But let’s just say that gratitude is just one of those spiritual commodities you’re always out of…
That’s when you need a U.F.O., or a UFO as I like to call them. If you don’t know what a UFO is doing in a Sunday Sermon, then you’re probably in the wrong church.
My talk this morning, “Rethinking Salvation,” is a timely topic, since we just celebrated Easter last Sunday, which generally promises resurrection from the dead and eternal life. This is a very seductive offer until you remember, once again, that the down payment is death. So, rather than waste time waiting around for something we’d all rather avoid, let’s see if we can save what’s left of this life.
I believe that if we can manage to live our lives with integrity, in good faith, and relatively free from despair, then one life so lived would contain enough love, peace, joy, happiness and satisfaction, so that a second life would not be necessary. This is not to say that eternal life doesn’t exist, but just in case it doesn’t, you’ll be glad you didn’t put all your Easter eggs in one basket.
I call my own philosophy of such matters, “Salvation Plan B”—not to be confused with “Medicare Part B,” which I just signed up for. Strangely enough, while my eligibility for Medicare has put me even more in touch with my own mortality, I feel a huge sense of relief just believing that I won’t die broke.
I’ve had a problem with salvation ever since the good nuns at my Catholic school told me that my very sweet Jewish father (affectionately called “Lou the Jew” by my Catholic Uncle Red) wouldn’t be allowed into Heaven—that the best he could hope for would be Purgatory. Purgatory is the place where only Catholics go to burn off their venial sins in order to be pure enough to enter Heaven. Lacking a coherent vision of Purgatory, I can only picture a waiting room at Jiffy Lube–not that there’s anything wrong with JiffyLube.
Let’s face it–If we lived forever, most people would probably not believe in God, not go to church, not get married and not worry about heaven, hell, and/or salvation. Come to think of it, a lot of Unitarians are already not doing that! Why is that?
Well, for starters, we Unitarians already don’t believe in hell (which is why the only Unitarian miracle I’m aware of is meeting our pledge goal). We really don’t talk much about life after death, since nobody (around here, at least) really seems to know anything about it. So we just stick to what we really do believe in: life before death. Most of us believe it is more likely that we will see a flying saucer than an angel. (Whoops! There’s that UFO again!) I agree, although I’ve never seen a flying saucer. But I have experienced the presence of angels everywhere—not the kind with wings, but ordinary people like you and me.
Whether or not we have Salvation or Salvation Plan B, we still have to deal with our own mortality. Tragically, we can’t change that. We can only change how we think about it. And how we think about it will predispose us towards despair or a sense of peace. As far as I know, Salvation is state of mind, and it is negotiable. Death, however, is not.
Contemporary philosopher, Thomas Nagel, says that he wouldn’t object to dying if it were not followed by death. Me, I wouldn’t object to death if it weren’t preceded by dying.
Personally, I find the verb much more frightening than the noun. But that’s because I’m a cowardly grammarian. In fact, I’m such a coward that I no longer call myself an atheist—just in case there is a God, I’m thinking that She may be more kindly disposed towards agnostics. While I can’t exactly envision myself agreeing to a deathbed conversion, I absolutely don’t see myself channeling “Christopher Hitchens,” thumbing his nose at the heavens with righteous indignation, incorrigible and unrepentant even in the clutches of death.
In spite of my fears, I have always believed that there are worse things than dying. The promise or threat of an afterlife has never been a comfort to me. Don’t get me wrong–Heaven would be a great bonus! I would love nothing more than to be reunited with my parents, Nelson Mandela, John Lennon, and, why not The Three Stooges, but I’m not really counting on it. If it seems too good to be true, it’s probably is too good to be true. I hope that’s not true about Medicare.
But the thought of dying AND going to Hell? Oh-oh! Just because I don’t think there is a Hell, doesn’t mean I can’t wind up there. Whatever you have to do to avoid Hell is probably worth looking into, but the thought of Hell is so repugnant to me that I never get around to doing it. Which is why Salvation is probably the default setting on most people’s belief system.
The stick in the mud with Salvation, though, is that we’re not exactly sure what it is and what it includes. The skeptic in me gets the distinct impression that it overpromises and under delivers.
I’m so afraid that if Salvation is even possible, it might just be a dispensation from Hell (which would be really great) but it might not include Heaven. This could be a very big problem, especially when you consider that you have now been granted eternal life with no place to spend it! If that turns out to be the case, we might all get stuck in Purgatory with my poor Jewish father, drinking coffee-flavored battery acid out of Styrofoam cups watching the shopping channel for all of eternity. And that would be the good news. The bad news would be that you wouldn’t be able to hear the shopping channel, since the volume control will be hooked up to a high powered leaf blower. But I don’t know that for sure.
Every once in a while, I hear someone say that they’ve been saved and have I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I am always intrigued by their sense of joy and peace, and that’s the element that is so important for Salvation Plan B. Maybe you don’t really have to be saved, you just have to think you are. The joy and peace, from wherever it comes, can help you right now.
On the other hand, it seems selfish to worry about one’s “personal salvation,” and seems to dilute the grace of being saved. Plus, as we get older, our sense of personal integrity should motivate us to become increasingly selfless, increasingly concerned with the welfare of others, so that our love and generosity transcend the boundaries that hobbled our best intentions when we were younger and more distracted by all the demands and wonder of life. If we are fortunate, our love grows up and we become universal. We have knowledge, experience, and hopefully, goodness. These are the roots of wisdom. Are we really waiting to be saved? It occurs to me that we are the ones who must do the saving. By that I mean doing what we can to make this life better—not just for ourselves and our own families, but by promoting peace, justice, and compassion for all people, animals, and nature, in every aspect of our lives, be it professional, environmental or political.
I tend to short-shrift the Universalist side of our denomination. Remember, we merged with them in 1961, and they’re probably still wondering if they did the right thing. Although the Universalists may be a lot more religious than what I’ve become accustomed to, they at least had the unique decency to profess universal salvation. What an incredible idea! It’s so communitarian! There’s a generosity of spirit there that deserves salvation, regardless of whether or not it exists! I so very much respect our Universalist spirit. Kind of like the Affordable Care Act—it might not be your cup of tea but no one’s excluded, (except if you live in South Carolina—which I think has more stringent rules for Salvation of any kind).
May God, if He or She exists, bless the Universalists! It’s that kind of spirit that we need to work towards our own salvation, but on this side of life, the only side we can possibly get a handle on.
What I learned from the Dalai Lama, I first learned from tight-rope walkers.
Years ago, I went to a Shriner Circus with a friend who was visiting his tightrope walker friends. When they told me that they had to tie their own ropes. I said the circus should make someone else tie their ropes, and they looked at me as if I had rocks in my head. They said you have to tie your own ropes because when your own life is on the line (no pun intended), you make good and sure that those knots are really tight!
Taking serious responsibility for yourself and your own happiness and welfare is a good way to avoid accidents, disappointments, and a host of other problems, and not establish conditions that demand remorse. The net result is peace. Peace is salvation for however long the peace prevails. The Dalai Lama says that “When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.”
Peace, like compassion, is always an option. Even when things get out of control, it’s always there, waiting patiently. I once went to an evangelical church and heard a rant on Luke 10. The minister paced furiously up and down the stage, shouting the story of Mary and Martha, who had opened up their home to Jesus and his disciples. Mary sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to his preaching, abandoning Martha to take care of the whole group by herself. She railed against Mary to Jesus, saying, “Lord! Here I am! Working my sorry self to the BONE! Now don’t you LET her get aWAY with that!” And the Lord turned to Martha, and he said, “Woman! LAY your burden down! Lay your BURDEN down! Lay your burden DOWN!” The theatrical performance bordered on the ridiculous, and I found myself laughing. I realized that, of course, you could just lay your burden down! All this angst, pain, bitterness, resentment and fear. It’s not gone, you just put it down. If you really get lonely for it, you can always go back to it, pick it back up and carry it around, just to remind yourself that you don’t deserve to be happy, that you should be miserable. Or you could choose peace. Go ahead—Stop resisting! Just go on and forgive whatever and whomever you have to forgive if you really want to save yourself. Lay your burden down. Let it go.
When I retired two years ago, it was like I was laying my burden down. I realized that the Universe was reminding me that Heaven and Hell are right here on earth. We Unitarians, in our disdain for Hell, just might be right: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Eat your dessert first. Enjoy every sandwich.
The real reason, though, that I’m talking about this today is that the older I get, the more I am confronted with death. I, personally, have a hard time trying to comfort a person who is dying with promises of going on to a better place or to comfort their families who are clutching at straws, frantically trying to save their loved one. At the end of the day, all our words ring hollow as we wring our hands and stand by helplessly. The dying beg God to save them from death and family members beg the dying to not abandon them. There is peace for no one and hellish torment for all until the resistance is replaced by acceptance. It is not our place to advise people to just accept something they can’t or won’t accept. I’m learning that I can’t fix everything, and for me, it’s part of letting go of my own resistance. There comes a time when all we can do is to tell people we love them.
So what about faith? Are we just kidding ourselves? Is this the cheap way out? For a long time, I puzzled over the difference between hope and faith. One night, I had a dream that resolved this problem. I dreamt that I had a brain tumor that was fatal. I would be having an operation that I knew would not save my life, but we were going to do it anyway. (In my dream, I must have already met my deductible.) I was so scared. Then the doctor put his hands on my head, and I understood that it was Jesus or Buddha or Allah or my Jewish Father. I had no hope that I would get better, but I was flooded with a sense of relief because I had an unshakeable faith that everything would be fine. Usually, reality is never as bad as our fears.
The Roman philosopher, Seneca the Younger, said that the first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.
The whole crucifixion story about Jesus dying for our sins to open up the gates of heaven only works for me as a metaphor, not as literal truth. To me it means that you realize that you made a mistake, you admit it to yourself and stop making excuses, you make honest restitution as best as you can by making things right again, asking for forgiveness and forgiving yourself, and actively changing your life for the better. Your salvation is that you saved yourself from wasting your precious life on things that can only end in regret. In changing our hateful, selfish or destructive behavior, or just our negativity, we resurrect our better, more loving and compassionate selves, letting that rotten part of ourselves die, as it should.
This is peace and joy, and it’s as close to Salvation and as far from despair as I can get in this lifetime.
There is nothing inherently wrong with believing in traditional salvation, except that believing that things will be better in the “next life,” gives us an unwarranted sense of complacency. And unless we really do have an eternal life coming to us, we’re just washing the dishes in a burning house. That faith can be put to better use right now. Faith should never ask us to believe in the supernatural but if it does nothing more than lead us to peace, that’s good enough for me.
Life has no remote—We’re just gonna have to get up and change it.
Can I get an amen?
Thank you to The Worship Committee, Judy Turnipseed, Andrea Dudick, Donald Griggs, David Roof, Karl McCollester, Janet Swigler, Linda Brennison, Bill Moody, Lisa Eason, Sandy Chubon, Jerry Moore, Jean Capalbo, and my husband, Doug Woodward, for their help in getting this service together.
Closing Words are from p159 of Jim Crace’s Being Dead:
“The world’s small, breathing denizens, its quaking congregations and its star gazers, were fools to sacrifice the flaring briefness of their lives in hopes of paradise or fears of hell. No one transcends. There is no future and no past. There is no remedy for death—or birth—except to hug the spaces in between. Live loud. Live wide. Live tall.”
7:00 am. The name “Tommy Vee” pops up on my text message:
The Glo Show and the Gloria Talcove Fiction Faction 